The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey

The Chiago Way
4 Stars-

This was a happy accident sort of purchase. I bought it in a major book sale for a few dollars and figured why not. What a wonderful "why not"!

Michael Kelly is a private investigator in Chicago. His old partner shows up one day with a cold case for him, the next he finds himself dead. Kelly isn't simply investigating a murder, he's thrown into a case that had its origin twenty years ago and the bodies just keep dropping. Kelly now has to question everything. Is someone a friend, lover, enemy? All three?

The novel has a great feel to it, like reading something from Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. The "hard boiled" detective had its hey-day in the 1930's and 1940's and it is a delight to have a modern equivalent. I'm a fan of the masters and have the entire "Philip Marlowe" series (that's by Chandler, so you know). Michael Kelly has the same sort of attitude and tone as Marlowe. This is the mystery novel I have been waiting for! Now I have to go and find book two in the series. I'd grumble, really I would, but I enjoyed the story and lead character far too much. 

Someplace To Be Flying by Charles DeLint

Someplace To Be Flying
5 Stars-

All right, so I'm partial, but who can blame me? I love DeLint's work and must say that his mixture of urban fantasy and traditional folklore has burrowed its way into my heart with no intent of leaving anytime soon.

In this story, we don't really see any of the usual characters. They are mentioned, but never introduced. Instead there is a focus on a lesser known pair of characters, Lilly and Hank. When she goes in search of the animal people from Jack's stories, Lilly finds more then she bargained for. One of these people try to kill her, but Hank turns up just in time to lend a hand with some serious help from the Crow Girls. This first encounter with a world neither of them understand bring downtown Hank and uptown Lilly together, in ways that neither of them would have ever expected.

I think the great take away from this novel is family. Sometimes we make mistakes with our kin and we have to atone for them, sometimes our family resembles a pack of wolves out for blood and there is no atonement. Sometimes when we introduce a member of the family we add that they are the ones we chose, not the ones we born into. Hank had a rough life, his family is odd and a little damaged, but good.

I could  not put this story down, I am always ready to dive headlong into a DeLint novel and only coming up for coffee. 

The Bar Code Rellion By Suzanne Weyn

The Bar Code Rebellion
Four Stars

This was a grand conclusion to the series. All right so, it isn't really a series as they go, more like a long story. Hard to explain, anyway...

So once I finished the first book, The Bar Code Tattoo, I had to see how it ended. We pick up where we left off, with Kayla in the rebel camps, trying to find the courage she's always had, but never realized. She has found a new ability to go with her visions of the future, telepathy.

We follow her as she travels across the country to get away from those chasing her and find friends she's lost. In her travels, she finds out that there is far more behind that tattoo then simple medical and financial information. The tattoo is not a protection, it was never meant to be. But what is it, and is that information worth killing for? To find out, you have to join the rebellion yourself, fight against the control of a government that never meant to protect you.

This story brings back memories of history class, the Sixties most especially. That was a time of much unrest, when the general populous was not exactly against the government, but they didn't exactly support it either. People protested being sent places they didn't want to go and doing things they didn't want to do. Basic freedoms were still in place, you weren't branded like cattle.

These books make you think, they make you take stock of what is offered as a protection when in reality its more of an imprisonment. Global positioning systems in our cell phones and cars are for our safety, what if we get lost? But it's also used for tracking. Fluoride is put into the drinking water. Vaccines are forced upon our children, a new one that is supposed to prevent certain cancers in women actually causes other cancers! How far is too far? That is what Suzanne Weyn is trying to tell us all in her books. She is forcing us to ask ourselves... how far is too far?

Outlaw by Angus Donald

Outlaw
*****-5 stars
I happened upon this at my local library. I enjoy stories of Robin Hood, keeping in mind that Robin is almost pure legend. Most of the stories we are told are, more or less, happy. Robin exchanging quips with his merry men, laughing while he slaps his Lincoln green thigh. If that is the story you're looking for, then don't bother.


This is an alternative telling of a legend we all know so well. Alan is a young fatherless boy in the streets of Nottingham, a cut purse and a thief. When the sheriff makes it his mission to catch every thief and remove his right hand, Alan is sent to Robin. He swears his allegiance to Robin of the Hood until death.

Alan stays with Robin, but isn't prepared for the things he sees. Robin is bloodthirsty and godless in a time when gentle nobles rule the land and are allied with the great Mother Church. In all respects, Robin is a dangerous man and a boy of fifteen summers enters into his inner circle. When the sheriff has Robin and his valiant men surrounded, it looks like there is no hope left, but this Robin... there's always something up his sleeve.

I loved this book! Adventure, intrigue, there's even a damsel in distress! For a story that is based off of a legend that we all know so well, it was well written and thoroughly entertaining.    

The Barcode Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn

The Bar Code Tattoo
*****- Five Stars

I happened upon this little gem whilst meandering though my local library. Oh the joys of books to read, free of charge! This book was just leaning ever so slightly off the shelf, so I adjusted it, then decided to take a closer look. "Closer", indeed! I read it in a few hours on the road this weekend.

We start in a world set in the future. Everything is smaller and faster then ever before. The latest "in" thing is to get this tattoo on your wrist of a bar code that is unique to you and only you. But see there's a problem in Utopia, isn't there always?

Kayla is one of the very few people who think there is something wrong morally about having your identity plastered on your arm for all the world to see. Medical records, criminal records, schooling records... every personal thing about you is right there for anyone with a scanner to see. Kayla refuses to get the tattoo, which starts to pose problems after the government makes it a law to be tattooed by seventeen.

What path will Kayla choose now? To follow the government and be a good little docile sheep, following the herd? Or will she take a stand for her morals? Are morals and self integrity really important anyway? Is "safety" the price for freedom?

A wonderful story, but then I'm a sucker for the "False Utopia" stories. 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Giver... There are more I'm sure, but these are my favourites. Is safety the price of our personal freedom? Can we be free moral agents, allowed to make mistakes, yet maintain freedom? What is price we are individually willing to pay? Well... you answer......

Forests Of The Heart by Charles De Lint

Forests of the Heart

Rated-- *****
All right, so this was a "fluff" book, one that you read purely for the entertainment, for the joy of the story itself, not because you expect to receive anything of wisdom in the pages. De Lint is among my favourite authors and his Newford stories are always on my reading shelf. I truly never tire of reading his tales.

Charles De Lint manages to mix ancient folklore, spiritism, and Christianity in a way that never comes off as anything other then a beautiful story. In this one, De Lint doesn't follow the characters that his fans have grown to love so dearly, but introduces us to all new people! A singular treat.

The story opens in the deserts of the American Southwest with a young woman who has powerful medicine in her. She travels to Newford because she was called, by something or someone she isn't sure. She gets dragged into an ancient battle between the spirits, a place that no one wants to be. You never try to attract the attention of spirits as old as creation itself. The list of characters is numerous and wonderful. We are all taken on an adventure to find a way to lock an ancient spirit away before he can destroy anyone in his bloodlust. Where will you stand?

De Lint again gives us, not only a story of people and fantastic possibilities, but a story of loves won and lost. Of fear and hope, of dreams and nightmares. Truly, this is a wonderful novel of pain and beauty, one I am pleased to have spent the night reading.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse Five

Rated- *****
I read this book earlier this year and I have to say it was rather incredible. Personally, I don't care for war, I think that murder in any way is morally reprehensible. That being said, Vonnegut has written a great fictionalized biography. It is both funny and painful, beautiful and sickening. I was not sure if such a thing can be accomplished, but Mr Vonnegut has proved me very wrong.

Written when the Cold War was in it's height, Vonnegut showed the world how he survived World War II, similar to the manner that the crew of M*A*S*H had in Korea. The brutal honesty of this novel makes you hate the idea of war being anything but a horrible idea. He shows us all that there is no glory in going to war, only nightmares and death.  We are taken for a short walk through his memories and are shown that there is no such thing as a fair war.

Slaughterhouse Five has been touted as the first of the anti-war novels. I'm not sure if this is true, but certainly was the first one I'd read. And I am glad of that. I don't think any other novel could have captured the true grit and horror that is war.

While at times, he seems to ramble on and digress, Vonnegut uses this as a way to compare "normal" to "horror". Sometimes they are starkly different, sometimes they are reflections of each other. There are moments in which we, as readers, are unsure where the story is going and why, but then no one really knows their path. I believe that Vonnegut was trying to show us that. To me, he succeeded with flying colours